The Soviet-Polish Peace of 1921 and the Creation of Interwar Europe

The Soviet-Polish peace treaty of 1921, also known as the 'Riga peace', ended the war of 1919-1920 and may be considered the most important Eastern European treaty of the interwar period. This deeply researched book offers the first post-Soviet account of how Bolshevik Russia and Poland came to sign the treaty - a pact that established the central part of the Soviet western border and provided Eastern Europe with a measure of stability that lasted until 1939. Jerzy Borzecki draws on a wealth of untapped materials in Russian and Polish archives to recreate the negotiations and behind-the-scenes manoeuvres leading up to and surrounding the treaty. He examines the significance of the agreement not only to its signatories but also to Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, and Latvia. The Riga peace represented an authentic compromise between Poland and Bolshevik Russia, Borzecki shows, and he offers new interpretations of other crucial aspects of the negotiations as well.